Len's Prose 001
Uncle Len's Bible Stories, Moses on the Mount. It was a Tuesday, much like any other Tuesday, when Moses and the gang park their cans at the foot of Mount Sinai. {Deuteronomy 9; 6-29. OK, maybe it wasn't a Tuesday, but who's to say it wasn't? Anyway, Moses is sorta drifting around in the company of his older brother, Aaron, and his sis, Miriam, along with a whole lot of other homeless folks. The buzz is, the word is coming down off that mountain. Moses is gonna get the straight dope from God himself up there. Now, Moses has a hard row to hoe from Jump Street. Seems the Pharaoh of Egypt put out a contract, saying that all boy babies of Hebrew slaves are to be tossed into the Nile River. This is when Moses is still pooping his drawers, so that means him, too. But, mom gets crafty. She goes along with the program alright, but launches the rug rat in a reed raft, sealed with tar. So, the kid floats down the Nile and gets spotted by the Pharaoh's daughter who wades out and brings the little tyke in. Now, Miriam is watching all this action and goes to the Pharaoh's daughter and asks if she would like a Hebrew woman to nurse the little guy. So who gets the job? Moses' mom, that's who! So Moses grows up as the son of the Pharaoh's lovely daughter. Pretty slick, if you ask me. Anyway, Moses grows up and gets a notion to take a gander at how the Egyptians were treating his Hebrew slave bros. He spies this Egyptian palooka mistreating one of them and drops the guy, dead in his tracks. Then, he buries the body in the sand, 'cause there isn't a lot of dirt in his home turf for that sort of thing. Moses hears it through the grapevine that Pharaoh is pissed and is gonna have him whacked. He beats feet to the Sinai peninsula and hitches up with this broad named Zipporah. One of her descendants would someday invent the cigarette lighter, I think. So, Moses wanders around for the next forty years, making ends meet, making like a shepherd. Zipporah gets a bun in the oven during this time and out pops Gershom, son of Moses. One day, as Moses is herding his flock to Mount Horeb, he spies this burning bush that won't burn up. I guess that catches his attention, 'cause he goes for a closer look-see. God starts yapping out of the middle of that bush, which would be enough to get anyone's attention, I figure. God tells Moses to hot-foot it to Egypt and free the Hebrew slaves. When a burning bush starts telling you to do things you listen up. Moses makes a bee-line straight for Egypt. When he gets there, he hooks up with his brother, Aaron. Moses lays out his mission to Pharaoh, but His Bigness isn't buying. So, God unleashes a bunch of plagues on Egypt until the Pharaoh cries uncle and lets all the slaves take a powder. Moses leads his people off in search of the promised land. Everything is everything, at this point. But Pharaoh does a flip-flop and sends the boys out after the slaves. He must have missed having that free labor and all. The armies are hot on our boy's tail as Moses and the gang come to the Red sea. You know the drill here. God parts the water. The Hebrews walk across the sea bed. The water closes down on the Egyptian soldiers. End of story for those mugs. That brings us back to the camp-out at the base of Mount Sinai. Moses splits to the top of the mountain for forty days and forty nights to get the ten commandments right from the horse's mouth, so to speak. That number seems to get around a lot, don't it? In any event, the Israelites get antsy and decide that Moses ain't coming back. They put the screws to Aaron to make some gods to tide them over, just in case they're right about Moses taking the air, permenant like. So Aaron, having nothing better to do, takes all the gold earrings and such and melts them down. He then puts together this swell golden calf for the yokels to bow and scrape to. Meanwhile, up on the mount, God is cluing Moses in about all the debauchery going on down there. God decides to ice the whole lot of them. Moses starts tap-dancing and convinces God to lay off his people. But, that doesn't keep Moses from getting pissed and losing it when he comes back down off the rock and sees the mess these clowns are making of themselves. He throws down the stone tablets these swell ten commandments from God are chiseled into, busting them into a gazillion pieces. He puts the powdered commandments into the drinking water and makes the rubes drink the stuff. Then, he gathers the sons of Levi, who's descendants would later invent canvas trousers, I think. He unleashes the sons of Levi and has them slaughter three thousand adult males. I mean, Moses is PISSED! As if that ain't enough, God slams some plagues down on their asses. Moses has to trek all the way up that friggin' mountain again to get another copy of the commandments printed out and trudges back down with them. And, there ya go. They all lived, if not happily, then ever after, at least. ---- Return to prose list...